Wednesday, May 27, 2015

We bi---ed, moaned and
complained about our Raymarine wheel autopilot*. Though from St. Martin in January 2013, all the way back to
Florida, then throughout the Bahamas (over 3,000 miles between the two) and
from Florida to Cuba, (~600 miles) it did work, mostly.

Gearing up for our South
Pacific passage, Wayne did studious research… especially the long passage from
Galapagos to theMarquesas, French
Polynesia; 3,000 miles and the longest unbroken open ocean stretch in the world.Between those two points, there is
nothing but open ocean.

Autopilots failed with
alarming frequently.

Given our recent autopilot
issues from Cuba to Providencia, we decided to order not just one, but two
autopilot drives (the part that failed) to back up our currently working
autopilot before we left Panama for the 1,000 mile Panama - Galapagos passage,
to be followed by a 3,000 Galapagos – Marquesas passage.Before we arrive in New Zealand by their
cyclone season in November 2015, Panama was our best location to acquire any needed
parts for the 5,000 or so miles we’d cover this year.

We did everything we could
to baby our autopilot….

Most of the time, we only
ran our genoa (headsail), as if we used our main or even our tiny mizzen sails
it stressed our autopilot.Made
for slow going.

Wayne set the sensitivity
down low on autopilot, which allowed to to sashay more rather than put in more
effort to maintain course.Also
made for slow going.

Wayne handsteered more often
to reduce our use on the autopilot.

A dampened washcloth was
kept on the drive motor, to help keep it cool.

Our autopilot worked, more
or less, until 23 days into our 32-day Galapagos – Marquesas passage.

And then it didn’t.At all.

Once again...

Wayne replaced the autopilot drive. He’s gotten so much “practice” at this, it takes him less than 10 minutes to make the fix.

Then Wayne replaced the new
and our newly broken autopilot drive with parts from the first and our existing
autopilot.And then he put in our
second new autopilot replacement drive

Then Wayne put in our newly
broken autopilot drive with parts from the second and our existing
autopilot.

Then Wayne cobbled together
the best of our existing remaining parts from all our autopilots.

Wayne quickly removed the autopilot from our wheelto swap out the old Raymarine autopilot for a new one.

Miraculously, we made it in
those last 750 miles and 8 ½ days to the Marquesas with the cobbled autopilot
still “working.”It “worked”
throughout the rest of our travels through the Marquesas, though with no
multi-day passages in that stretch, it’s not such a big deal.

Tomorrow Wayne’s installing
a CPT wheel pilot we ordered from the
U.S. and received in Nuku Hiva, Marquesas.It doesn’t have all the fancy bells and whistles our
Raymarine autopilot has.But, more
important, CPT autopilots have a reputation for rock-solid performance.CPT owners rave about their
autopilots.Raymarine wheel
autopilots, like us, typically use profanity to describe their autopilot’s
performance, and we’re not talkin’ “Hot Damn!”

In a “past life” I worked in
Hewlett-Packard’s marketing department.Part of my responsibilities included figuring out the
right customer for our product and making sure why was clearly
articulated.If I were naming our
Raymarine autopilot, I would call it “The Little Weekender.”For smaller boats, especially if
they’re motor boats (not sailboats) and not making multi-day, continuous
passages, our Raymarine autopilot is fine.But for a small South Pacific-bound cruising sailboat making
the requisite multi-day passages, it’s inadequate.

*FYI – an autopilot is a
device that automatically steers the boat to a set course.Imagine you were driving from Alaska to
Chile, nonstop.Wouldn’t you like
it if your car could be steered for you, and your job would be to make sure it
ran smoothly, stayed on course and didn’t hit anything?Autopilots are like an extra crew
member, sharing the load….

Location Location

We’re currently anchored in
Taiohae Bay, on Nuka Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia (S8.54.856 W140.05.880)
with a new CPT autopilot in hand
waiting for install before we head off to the Tuomotos, which are ~450 miles
away, likely a 5-day, non-stop passage.It will be a good test for our new CPT autopilot.